George  Washington  Flowers 
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COLONEL  FLOWERS 


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The  State  and  the  Nation — Sacred  to  Christian  Citizens. 


A SERMON 

PREACHED  IN  ALL  SOULS’  CHURCH,  NEW  YORK, 


APRIL  21,  1861. 


BY 

HENRY  W.  BELLOWS. 


NEW  YORK: 

JAMES  MILLER, 

SUCCESSOR  TO 

C.  S.  FRANCIS  & CO.,  522  BROADWAY. 
1861. 


SERMON. 


e»- 


<!  And  then  shall  they  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  a cloud, 
with  power  and  great  glory. 

“ And  when  these  things  begin  to  come  to  pass,  then  look  up 
and  lift  up  your  heads;  for  your  redemption  draweth  nigh.”  Luke 
xxi.  28. 

There  is  something  profoundly  instructive  in  the 
double  title  which  our  Saviour  bears  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament Scriptures, — Son  of  Man,  and  Son  of  God.  In 
Him  are  united  the  interests  and  the  affections  of  heav- 
en and  earth.  He  is  equally  the  representative  of  God 
and  man,  the  first-born  of  Deity  and  the  only  perfect 
child  of  Humanity.  His  double  name,  too,  is  expres- 
sive of  his  double  office,  which  is  to  bless  us  in  this 
world,  while  it  saves  us  for  another ; to  exalt  us  in  time, 
while  it  prepares  us  for  eternity.  Christ,  by  his  life  and 
death,  his  precepts,  example,  and  inspiration,  moves 
and  fashions  alike  the  institutions  of  society,  and  the 
immortal  character  and  destiny  of  men.  In  the  Church 
he  is  the  Son  of  God,  with  tender  human  sympathy, 
winning  men’s  souls  to  contemplations,  hopes,  and  as- 
pirations above  time  and  sense  ; in  the  world,  he  is  the 
Son  of  Man,  with  divine  light  and  spiritual  succor,  car- 
rying the  principles  of  a heavenly  society  into  the  im- 
mediate civilization  of  mankind.  He  is  thus  the  light 
of  the  world,  and  the  bright  and  morning-star  of  im- 
mortality ; the  source  of  progress,  improvement,  lib- 


4 


erty  and  happiness  here,  and  of  peace  and  joy  and 
sanctity  and  blessedness  hereafter. 

We  have  a dual  nature  ourselves, — a double  life 
and  consciousness  corresponding  to  our  Lord’s  twofold 
ministry  ; first,  a conscience  to  be  set  right  towards 
God,  a hope  full  of  immortality  to  be  nursed,  to  which 
the  Son  of  God  makes  his  great  appeal ; and  then  du- 
ties and  sympathies  towards  our  fellow-men — offices  of 
immediate  urgency  and  opportunity — to  which  the  Son 
of  Man  lends  inspiration  and  guidance.  These  two 
sides  of  our  nature  are  represented  in  the  world  by 
the  Church  and  the  State,  both  sacred  and  divine  in- 
stitutions : the  Church,  the  home  and  guardian  of  our 
purely  spiritual  and  eternal  interests ; the  State,  the 
home  and  guardian  of  our  relative,  human,  and  social 
interests.  The  Son  of  God  is  the  head  of  the  Church, 
the  Son  of  Man  the  head  of  the  State  ; and  Church  and 
State  are  spiritually  united  in  his  indivisible  character 
and  influence.  Nothing  can  be  less  real  than  the  im- 
aginary separation  between  Church  and  State  in  this 
country.  The  visible  Church  is  separated  from  the 
visible  State,  as  to  official  and  legal  functions  ; but  this 
exterior  divorce  was  mainly  necessary  to  secure  a truer 
interior  union.  Civil  and  spiritual  powers,  man  as  a 
citizen  and  man  as  an  immortal,  were  never  so  inti- 
mately blended  as  in  the  very  origin  of  our  govern- 
ment. Our  fathers  spurned  ecclesiastical  control,  that 
they  might  be  more  free  to  worship  and  serve  God  ; 
and  the  use  they  made  of  the  religious  liberty  they 
acquired,  was  to  render  the  voluntary  support  of  reli- 
gious institutions  and  the  Church  more  generous  and 
efficacious  than  any  enforced  support  of  it  ever  had 
been  or  could  be. 

We  are  not  content  that  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God 
should  rule  in  the  Church  alone  ; we  look  for  Him  as 


5 


the  Son  of  Man  to  come  in  the  State.  We  know  that 
these  interests  are  one  ; that  man  as  a citizen  and  as  a 
saint  has  the  same  vocation  ; that  Christ  is  Son  of  Man 
and  Son  of  God;  and  that  He  must  come  equally  in 
Church  and  State  before  his  kingdom  is  complete. 
When  therefore  Christ  as  “ the  Son  of  Man  ” comes  in 
power  and  great  glory,  he  sheds  light,  inspiration,  and 
freshness  over  society  ; he  invigorates  its  failing  pow- 
ers, pours  a new  life  into  its  dull  veins,  reorganizes  its 
old  and  effete  materials,  and  changes  its  fashion  into  a 
brighter  pattern  of  morality  and  justice.  When  Christ 
as  “ the  Son  of  God  ” comes,  he  kindles  up  the  altars, 
revives  the  devotional  life,  and  quickens  the  spiritual 
longings  and  aspirations  of  his  people.  And  as  there 
are  periods  of  Christian  revival  in  the  Church,  so  there 
are  periods  of  Christian  revival  in  the  State.  They  are 
very  unlike  in  their  manifestations,  though  identical  in 
their  origin,  and  inseparable  in  their  purpose  and  ulti- 
mate influence.  When  the'  sense  of  humanity,  the 
longing  to  realize  ideal  justice,  to  extend  the  equality 
of  human  privileges,  to  abolish  immoral  anomalies,  to 
embody  in  more  perfect  laws  more  perfectly  kept  the 
maxims  and  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christ — when 
philanthropic  instincts  and  aspirations  surge  in  deep, 
full  waves  through  the  heart  of  a nation  or  an  era,  then 
the  Son  of  Mem  is  coming,  it  may  be  in  a cloud , but 
still  loith  great  'power  and  glory.  Christ  is  working  on 
the  State,  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  becoming 
the  kingdoms  of  God’s  Son  ; and  blessed  is  the  faith 
that  recognizes  the  source  of  this  glorious  and  power- 
ful advent.  For,  alas,  the  jealousy  of  ecclesiastics  or 
Christians  of  the  half-breed,  is  always  misleading  those 
who  venerate  the  Son  of  God,  to  deny  Him  as  the  Son 
of  Man.  They  imagine  they  do  Christ  honor,  by  see- 


6 


ing  only  half  his  work,  and  recognizing  only  half  his 
presence ! The  great  human  side  of  his  labors,  the 
regeneration  of  social  and  civil  and  political  life  which 
he  is  steadily  producing,  they  disown  as  if  unworthy 
of,  or  even  inconsistent  with,  his  purely  heavenly  and 
spiritual  redemption ! As  if  the  State  were  not  the 
body  of  the  Church,  which  ought  to  be  its  soul ; its 
purification  and  strength  and  growth,  as  essentially  and 
vitally  connected  with  the  prosperity  and  life  of  the 
Church,  as  the  health  of  our  bodies  with  the  welfare 
of  our  spirits.  This  unhappy  alienation  of  Church  and 
State,  of  social  and  religious  interests,  has  usually  left 
the  movements  of  liberty  and  progress,  and  the  read- 
justment of  society  to  better  social  and  civil  standards, 
in  the  hands  of  the  undevout  and  the  unbelieving;  as 
if  it  v ere  too  much  to  love  God  and  liberty  at  the 
same  time,  or  humanity  and  heaven  together ; as  if 
philanthropy  were  the  rival  instead  of  the  partner  of 
piety,  and  the  State  the  antagonist,  instead  of  the  ally 
of  the  Church.  Are  we  never  to  learn  that  Christ  is 
equally  Son  of  Man  and  Son  of  God,  and  that  he  is  as 
jealous  of  one  name  as  of  the  other  ? Is  the  humanity 
of  our  Lord  less  precious  and  significant  than  his  di- 
vinity ? Nay,  is  life  itself  not  the  beginning  of  im- 
mortality ; this  world  the  predestined  scene  of  Christ’s 
first  triumph  ; and  our  ordinary,  social,  civil,  and  do- 
mestic life  the  very  sphere  where  his  glorious  kingdom 
is  to  be  set  up  ? 

I speak  of  our  secular,  as  distinguished  from  our 
future  interests,  as  all  comprehended  under  that  one 
word,  the  State.  That  is  the  only  grand,  venerable, 
symbolic  word  that  can  fitly  represent  them  all.  The 
State — the  great  common  life  of  a nation,  organized 
in  laws,  customs,  institutions;  its  total  social  being  in- 
carnate in  a political  unit,  having  common  organs  and 


7 


functions;  a living  body,  with  ahead  and  a heart,  com- 
mon pulsations,  common  interests  and  feelings,  with 
a common  consciousness.  The  State ! wound  it  in  any 
part,  and  pain  is  felt  in  all.  Warm  it  any  where,  and 
its  whole  blood  is  cheered.  Feed  it  at  its  head,  and 
its  whole  body  is  nourished.  The  State — it  is  no  ab- 
straction ! but  a living,  breathing  reality,  with  a mem- 
ory, a consciousness,  a sensibility  to  praise  and  blame, 
a conscience,  a power  to  sicken  and  die,  or  to  conva- 
lesce, and  grow,  and  thrive.  When  Louis  XIY.  said, 
“ The  State — it  is  I,” — if  he  meant  that  the  State  had 
a personality  like  his  own,  he  spoke  a great  and  most 
pregnant  truth.  For  until  we  learn  to  affirm  con- 
science, intellect,  obligation,  shame,  honor,  unity  of  the 
State  as  of  an  individual,  we  are  in  a grovelling  me- 
chanical humor,  which  tends  all  the  time  to  carry  us 
back  to  the  barbarous  or  savage  condition.  That  old 
“divinity  that  doth  hedge  a king’’  was  the  mere  re- 
flection of  the  sanctity  that  belongs  to  the  State,  and 
only  as  its  great  representative  was  the  veneration  paid 
to  royalty,  most  fitly  due.  The  State  is  indeed  divine, 
as  being  the  great  incarnation  of  a nation’s  rights,  priv- 
ileges, honor  and  life ; that  to  which  every  man  dying, 
bequeaths  all  that  he  cannot  carry  with  him — the  State 
being  the  heir  of  all  the  precious  memories  of  succes- 
sive generations,  fed  on  their  nobility,  strong  with  their 
good  services,  rich  with  their  wealth,  impregnated  with 
their  spirit,  and  perpetuating  in  itself  the  glorious  tradi- 
tions of  all  its  successive  generations  of  faithful  children. 

Essential  to  the  life  and  glory  of  the  State,  is  the 
sentiment  of  nationality.  The  progress  of  the  world 
has  laid  in  the  development  of  this  self-consciousness  in 
peoples.  And  as  great  States  have  become  more  and 
more  humane,  Christian,  free;  as  their  national  spirit 
and  temper,  their  constitutions  and  laws  have  partaken 


s 


more  and  more  of  what  we  love  and  admire  in  great 
Christian  characters, — the  Son  of  Man  has  come  in 
them,  with  great  power  and  glory.  In  the  old  world, 
however,  nationality — always  and  under  all  circum- 
stances beautiful  and  glorious — ’has  been  more  or  less 
in  rivalry  with  civil  liberty.  Governments,  which  prop- 
erly represent  and  externalize  the  national  life  and 
spirit,  have  yet  been  commonly  made  strong  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  rights  and  independence  of  the  people.  For, 
by  a noble  instinct,  people  will  consent  to  a great  loss 
of  personal  liberty,  for  the  sake  of  national  dignity  and 
power.  They  gladly  merge  their  private  rights  and 
privileges  in  the  majesty  of  the  State,  and  the  loyalty 
found  under  despotic  governments,  which  are  yet  true 
to  themselves,  is  an  affecting  tribute  to  the  love  and 
pride  of  country  which  sweetens  even  the  wrongs  and 
sufferings  of  the  over-governed  and  over-taxed.  That 
a proud  loyalty  should  belong  to  England,  where  such 
a steady  advance  in  popular  rights  is  always  making, 
does  not  surprise  us.  But  it  is  equally  true  of  France, 
which  perhaps  even  more  than  England  beats  with  a 
national  pulse  and  pride,  although  her  government  is 
a usurpation  and  her  emperor  a despot.  But  he  has 
the  skill  to  make  France  great,  feared,  loved, — he  is 
true  to  her  national  instincts  and  aspirations,  and  her 
people  postpone  their  private  rights  and  longings,  to 
the  glory  of  France.  But  how  sublimely  is  nationality 
exhibiting  itself  in  Italy  and  in  Russia — in  Italy,  where 
a common  language  and  blood,  common  hopes  and 
fears  and  interests,  are  forcing  one  circulation  through 
all  its  lately  manacled  and  paralytic  limbs ; and  a cen- 
tral heart,  true  to  generous  ideas  and  human  rights,  now 
sends  for  the  first  time  for  fifteen  hundred  years,  lawful 
pulsations  from  the  Alps  to  the  Ionian  Sea.  The  icy 
North  is  not  behind  the  fervid  South  in  national  aspi- 


9 


ration.  Russia  lias  just  achieved  undying  glory,  by 
an  act  surpassing  even  British  emancipation  in  courage 
and  fidelity  to  conscience.  Her  splendid  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  serfs  is  perhaps  the  greatest  tribute  ever 
paid  by  a nation  to  moral  convictions;  and  the  “Son 
of  Man  came  in  great  power  and  glory,”  when  that 
lately-esteemed  barbarous  people,  in  the  person  of  her 
czar,  her  princes  and  nobles,  laid  down  the  intoxicat- 
ing but  corrupting  and  damning  pride  of  man-owning , 
at  the  feet  of  a Christian  throne.  The  glorious  author- 
ity of  the  State,  the  worth  and  dignity  of  a national 
character,  the  possibility  of  eradicating  a moral  cancer 
from  the  breast  of  a nation — however  near  its  life — 
these  ideas  have  been  gloriously  vindicated  for  modern 
times — and  for  us,  especially — in  Italy  and  in  Russia, 
the  extremes  of  Europe. 

We  have  a different  equation  to  solve  here,  and 
one  on  which  the  attention  of  the  whole  world  waits 
with  anxiety. 

No  people  can  be  great,  respected,  loved,  feared, 
trusted,  without  nationality ; without  patriotic  devo- 
tion and  unity,  national  instincts,  and  affections ; a 
common  government  round  which  they  rally,  and  a 
common  soil,  every  inch  of  which  is  sacred  to  every 
citizen.  We  have  in  several  respects  the  grandest  ele- 
ments of  unity  ever  possessed  by  any  people  ; a com- 
mon language  and  a common  religion ; a territory  in- 
divisible in  natural  boundaries ; a continent  with  all 
the  isolation  of  an  island,  and  with  the  disadvantageous 
vastness  of  its  space  overcome  by  the  genius  of  mod- 
ern locomotive  arts.  We  have  the  solemn  memory  of 
common  Avars  in  which  one  people  shed  their  mingled 
blood  now  on  Northern  and  noAV  on  Southern  soil.  Our 
great  names  belong  to  the  whole  country.  There  is 
every  reason  in  the  world — one  only  excepted — why 


10 


our  American  people  should  be  a unit ; and  the  trial 
now  upon  us,  is  whether  that  one  reason  shall  prevail 
against  all  the  others. 

American  nationality  has  doubtless  some  obstacles 
in  its  way  altogether  peculiar  in  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion. It  is  an  attempt  to  organize  the  jealous  individ- 
ualism of  democratic  freedom — a condition  in  which 
personal  independence  and  the  private  man  and  local 
authority  claim,  and  are  allowed,  the  largest  liberty — 
into  a consentaneous,  harmonious,  and  powerful  nation, 
able  to  wield  its  authority,  to  symbolize  its  majesty,  to 
unify  its  policy  through  a strong  government, — and 
yet  one  strong  only  in  the  confidence  and  affections  of 
the  people.  You  cannot  have  a great  nationality,  with- 
out a strong  government.  There  must  be  a proper 
expression  and  symbolism  of  the  national  life  in  an  in- 
violable national  flag,  and  in  trusted  and  sustained  na- 
tional rulers.  But  you  cannot  have  a strong  govern- 
ment in  our  circumstances  of  democratic  liberty  with- 
out the  free  and  full  consent  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 
Can  you  have  that  consent  in  this  country  ? No  ! says 
the  whole  European  world.  No ! says  the  history  of 
the  past.  No ! says  the  Southern  Confederacy.  No ! 
say  the  governors  of  the  Border  States.  No!  said  a 
week  ago  some  of  the  leading  presses  of  the  North. 
No!  said  the  fears  and  misgivings  of  patriotic  souls 
everywhere.  But,  thanks  be  to  God,  the  instincts  and 
affections  of  the  American  heart,  the  latent  nationality 
of  the  vast  majority  of  its  people,  have  rushed  as  with 
the  might  of  a deluge,  to  drown  those  fearful  Nays,  in 
one  sublime  affirmation!  Yea!  yea!  say  the  people, 
we  are  a nation.  We  have  a common  heart  and  soul, 
and  are  one  body.  The  government  (we  care  not  what 
party  has  put  it  there)  stands  for  this  nationality — stands 
for  our  honor,  power,  unity,  self-respect — stands  for 


11 


our  dignity  abroad  and  our  peace  and  prosperity  at 
home — stands  for  America ! The  American  flag  has 
our  hearts’  blood  in  its  ruddy  veins ; our  national  heav 
en  opens  in  its  field  of  blue ; aud  our  lives  shall  set 
sooner  than  its  stars ! And  clustering  round  its  stand- 
ard, flock  at  once  a hundred  thousand  men — the  flower 
of  the  land — to  maintain  in  the  face  of  all  the  world  the 
proud  assertion : This  American  people  is  not  a set  of 
civilized  squatters  upon  a common  territory — ^a  school 
of  wriggling  fish  accidentally  caught  in  one  federal 
net — an  aggregation  of  petty  communities,  confined  in 
some  political  kaleidoscope,  to  which  any  strong  hand 
at  every  election  may  give  a shake  that  alters  its  whole 
aspect  and  identity ; but  instead  of  all  this,  it  is  a Na- 
tion, like  England,  France,  Russia,  with  an  organic  life 
and  destiny — a pride,  a character,  a soul,  which  it  will 
vindicate  and  uphold  so  long  as  it  has  an  ounce  of  sil- 
ver in  its  treasury,  or  a drop  of  blood  in  its  veins. 

We  have  long  known  that  our  nationality  was  pro- 
nounced enough  to  make  us  safe  against  all  foreign 
foes.  Our  doubts  have  been  whether  our  centrifugal 
forces  at  home  might  not  prevail  over  our  centripetal ; 
our  local  interests  and  passions  over  our  national  pride 
and  unity.  And  certainly,  for  twenty  years,  the  omens 
have  been  dark  and  discouraging.  Our  patriotism  has 
been  all  exhausted  in  efforts  to  hang  together  upon 
eternal  compromises  and  ever-shifting  conditions.  Our 
statesmanship  has  been  a perpetual  feat  of  balancing 
upon  the  ever-tightening  rope  of  sectional  jealousy  and 
exaction.  The  equilibrium , not  the  nationality,  has 
been  our  worship ! The  States  have  been  stealing  away 
the  loyalty  due  to  the  nation.  Parties  have  absorbed 
the  pride  belonging  to  the  country.  National  men 
have  been  shrinking  into  petty  politicians,  and  bribery, 


12 


corruption,  peculation,  treason  have  flourished  in  the 
capital. 

/ did  not  know — you  did  not  know — the  cabinet 
did  not  know,  a single  week  ago,  whether  the  country 
had  a heart  and  soul  or  not.  A horrid  nightmare  of 
apathy,  hesitation,  doubt,  sat  upon  the  nation’s  breast, 
and  it  looked  as  if  the  country  might  die  in  this  ster- 
torous sleep.  But  the  cracking  of  that  splintered  flag- 
staff broke  the  spell.  The  nation  woke  on  Monday 
morning  and  shook  itself,  and  brushed  away  the  doubts 
and  difficulties  and  dissensions  which  had  paralyzed  it, 
as  a man  clears  the  sleep  from  his  eyes  with  the  first 
handful  of  water  he  snatches  when  he  wakes ; and  now 
there  is  no  more  doubt  that  we  are  a nation  and  a gov- 
ernment, to  be  respected  at  home  and  abroad,  than 
there  is  that  shameful  treason  and  folly  have  disgraced 
a powerful  section  of  the  country,  and  are  aiming 
straight  at  the  national  heart. 

American  nationality  is  not  on  trial, — for  we  may 
consider  it  established  by  the  wonderful  demonstrations 
of  the  past  week.  But  it  is  important  to  understand  that 
the  contest  before  us  is  one  in  which  some  long-rooted 
and  deeply-bedded  errors  fatal  to  our  peace,  our  na- 
tional morals,  our  religion  and  our  power  and  pros- 
perity, are  to  be  exterminated — it  may  be  with  bloody 
hands. 

It  is  no  longer  to  be  said  with  bated  breath  only, 
Freedom  is  national,  Slavery  is  sectional ; that  is  to  be 
thundered  with  constitutional  cannon  upon  the  deaf 
and  deluded  ears  of  those  who  have  refused  to  listen 
to  the  ballot-box.  It  is  no  longer  to  be  allowed  that 
secession  is,  perhaps,  the  right  of  disaffected  States. 
That  word  is  to  be  blotted  from  our  political  vocabu- 
lary with  national  scorn;  and  blacker  lines  drawn 
about  it  than  ever  fenced  in  the  iniquitous  entry  of 


13 


some  subservient  legislature,  from  polluting  the  records 
of  the  State.  It  is  no  longer  to  be  admitted  that  we  have 
a divided  sovereignty  to  distract  and  neutralize  the  loy- 
alty of  our  army  and  navy  and  people.  There  is  no  more 
pestilent  heresy  in  the  world  than  that  of  a double  sov- 
ereignty. God  and  mammon,  Christ  and  Belial,  may  as 
soon  live  together  as  two  sovereignties!  And  our  de- 
luded brethren  are  themselves  logically  proving  this, 
by  giving  their  sole  allegiance  to  the  only  sovereign 
they  reverence,  their  separate  States.  This  wretched 
fallacy  lies  at  the  root  of  our  troubles.  We  have 
evaded  it,  covered  it  over,  coaxed  it,  temporized  with 
it — but  now  we  have  to  exterminate  it.  The  supreme, 
sole  undivided  sovereignty  of  the  United  States  is  to 
be  finally  vindicated,  and  the  nation  is  not  to  lay  down 
its  arms  while  a single  traitor  to  the  flag  remains  to  be 
dealt  with.  It  is  unfortunate  that  our  local  govern- 
ments are  called  States.  It  misleads  the  people  by 
clothing  these  admirable  organizations  with  a delusive 
seeming  of  sovereignty ; but  this  narrow,  selfish,  ig- 
norant provincial  pride  must  be  permanently  humbled, 
and  the  wide  and  noble  American  patriotism  of  the 
Fathers  brought  back  to  its  original  place  and  dignity. 

Nor  is  it  any  longer  to  be  admitted  that  a consti- 
tutional majority  holds  its  right  to  rule  by  sufferance 
and  dispute.  This  rebellion  is  a rebellion  against  the 
Ballot-box,  the  most  sacred  possession  of  modern  civil- 
ization. The  ballot-box  is  more  vital  to  our  interests 
as  Americans,  than  mints  and  forts  and  bank-vaults  and 
treasuries  and  armories.  We  may  more  innocently 
and  safely  submit  to  assaults  on  these,  than  upon  that 
symbol  and  instrument  of  our  peaceful  liberties.  Al- 
low uncertainty,  dispute,  contempt,  armed  opposition 
to  hang  over  its  decisions,  and  our  country  is  lost! 
No  ! the  ballot-box  must  be  now  forever  lifted  above 


14 


the  desecration  of  sectional  or  party  rage  and  oppo- 
sition. Its  peaceful  rights  must  be  sustained  with  all 
the  force  that  its  loyal  supporters  can  command.  A 
million  cartridge-boxes  must  see  that  the  ballot-box  at 
the  end  of  this  struggle  is  henceforth  safe  without  one 
musket  to  protect  it. 

We  have,  then,  a holy  war  on  our  hands — a war  in 
defence  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  this  govern- 
ment— a war  in  defence  of  American  Nationality,  the 
Constitution,  the  Union,  the  rights  of  legal  majorities, 
the  ballot-box,  the  law.  We  must  wage  it  in  the  name 
of  civilization,  morality,  and  religion,  with  unflinching 
earnestness,  energy,  and  self-sacrifice.  God  knows  how 
we  have  striven  and  prayed  to  avert  the  awful  neces- 
sity ! But  the  hour  would  not  be  delayed.  And  no 
sublimer  spectacle  has  dawned  on  the  world  than  the 
sudden  dispersion  of  all  partisan  feelings,  commercial 
selfishness,  and  weak  irresolution,  by  the  solemn  up- 
rising of  the  ancient  spirit  of  liberty.  It  has  come 
unexpectedly,  but  not  a minute  too  soon  to  save  the 
nation.  Another  presidential  term,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  spirit  which  has  prevailed  for  five  and  twenty 
years  past,  would  have  put  the  nation,  bound  hand  and 
foot,  in  the  toils  of  a corrupted,  insolent,  and  domi- 
neering Slaveocracy.  But  the  nation  is  aroused  ! and 
it  must  be  kept  awake.  Our  present  dangers  are  the 
penalties  of  past  stupor.  This  noble  patriotism  which 
now  dignifies  all  hearts,  must  not  be  suffered  to  escape 
in  a temporary  ebullition.  It  must  be  calmed  on  the 
surface  and  deepened  at  the  bottom.  It  must  learn 
patience,  persistence,  and  gravity.  We  are  providen- 
tially called  to  a conflict  more  urgent  than  our  first  revo- 
lution— more  perilous  and  awful.  We  must  not  de- 
spise our  enemies,  nor  think  slightingly  of  their  saga- 
city, their  means,  or  their  resolution.  They  are  terribly 


15 


in  earnest,  they  are  richer  than  we  think,  they  have 
long-arrangecl  plans,  they  have  a desperate  game  to 
play,  they  have  able,  ambitious,  and  unscrupulous 
leaders,  and  are  under  the  sway  of  local  delusions,  politi- 
cal fallacies,  and  military  habits  and  tastes.  It  is  only 
by  the  instant  rally  of  the  largest  force  we  can  muster, 
and  by  the  immediate  exercise  of  the  greatest  power 
we  can  put  forth,  by  the  dropping  of  every  hesitating 
or  half-way  policy,  by  the  most  direct,  aggressive,  and 
overwhelming  vindication  of  all  our  laws  and  rights, 
that  we  can  diminish  the  effusion  of  blood,  and  control 
within  the  narrowest  limits  the  horrors  and  the  injuries 
of  Civil  War. 

This  is  not  a war  against  the  South,  or  against  its 
institutions,  its  rights,  or  its  people.  It  is  a war  for 
the  South,  for  the  whole  people,  for  the  Constitution, 
and  the  Union./  We  see  our  brethren  there  under  a 
general  madness,  ready  to  fire  the  Capitol,  drawing  the 
sword  upon  tlieir  own  and  our  own  country.  We  see 
them  ready  to  commit  national  suicide,  and  we  rush 
in  to  prevent  a catastrophe  as  fatal  to  them  as  to  us ! 
“We  must  be  cruel,  that  we  may  be  kind.”  We  must 
be  their  enemies  for  the  moment,  because  we  wish  to 
be  their  permanent  friends ; and  God  knows  that  their 
distant  posterity  will  bless  us  for  restraining  the  mad- 
ness which,  if  allowed  to  have  its  way,  would  bury 
the  American  name,  and  its  liberties  and  glories,  in  an 
ignominious  oblivion. 

March  on,  then,  ye  noble  patriots  from  the  loyal 
States  of  our  sacred  Union  ! Your  faces  are  set  to- 
wards the  grave  of  Washington,  which  must  never  pass 
into  any  keeping  less  dignified  than  the  nation’s  own. 
You  go  to  save  the  Capitol,  where  the  Father  of  his 
Country,  and  Jefferson  and  the  Adamses  and  Madison 
and  Jackson  presided  over  a common  soil  with  irnpar- 


16 


tial  care  ; where  Marshall  and  Jay  and  Story  judged 
the  people  righteously  ; where  Gadsden,  Pinckney  and 
Livingston,  Hamilton  and  King,  and  Clay  and  Web- 
ster honored  the  Union  with  their  fervid  devotion  ; 
and  where  patriotism  and  wisdom  and  justice  still  sur- 
vive, and  seek,  with  honest  impartiality,  to  maintain 
and  allow  the  rights  and  claims  of  the  thirty-four  States 
of  the  nation.  What  though  your  blood  has  already, 
on  the  sacred  19th  of  April,  rebaptized  our  liberties 
on  the  soil  of  Maryland  ? The  men  of  ’61  are  not  more 
precious  nor  less  brave  than  those  of  ’76,  and  Baltimore 
is  as  good  a place  as  Lexington  to  die  for  one’s  coun- 
try ! Go,  then ! ye  noble  sons  of  Massachusetts  and 
New  York,  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  Rhode  Island  and 
young  Minnesota  ! offer  your  bodies  as  the  first  ram- 
part to  our  invaders.  The  ranks  will  rapidly  close  up 
behind  you — for  this  is  no  time  for  men  to  hold  their 
lives  dear ; no  day  for  cowards,  sluggards,  or  neutrals. 
The  Son  of  Man  bids  you  “look  up  and  lift  up  your 
heads,  for  your  redemption  draweth  nigh.”  Your 
country,  mankind,  history,  and  God’s  holy  bar,  will 
bless  you  for  your  alacrity,  your  courage,  your  fidel- 
ity, and  your  sacrifices. 


Date  Due 

- 

Form  335 — 40M— 6-39— S 

973,795  B448V  363714 


